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Use Device Graphs for Cross-Device Tracking & Measurement

This is the third post in a series of five video blogs explaining how to measure mobile media.

Today’s digital consumer is using multiple devices in their purchase cycle. From researching a car on their smartphone while riding the bus in the morning, to configuring their perfect vehicle on their tablet while watching TV, to signing up for an auto insurance quote on their laptop, each device plays a significant role in getting to the sale.

You need to know that all that research and purchase behavior is related to the same person. That means you need to know how the devices are related to each other. One way to know that is whether the devices use the same home Wi-Fi network with the same IP address. With that information, you can build a device graph that shows one person’s relationship to several devices.

Ad networks collect volumes of information about the devices they serve ads to — up to 125 pieces of data may be collected with each ad! That includes the mobile ID, Wi-Fi connection, IP address and much more, which means the ad network is more than just a delivery system. It’s another data store of information about customers.

We can use this information to retarget ads to “jump” from device to device — even if the customer hasn’t used a certain device for this particular product research.

Click here to watch the video explaining how device graphs work for cross-device tracking and measurement.